Hardie happy to look to his laurels

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Brownlow medallist Brad Hardie reflects on the last time Brisbane won under lights at the MCG - in 1988.

What did those mighty Brisbane
Bears of 1988 have that the outfits of more recent years have lacked?I
think some potency up forward that is unparalleled. Some of those guys up forward, like Brown and Lynch, would struggle to get into that side of '88, I'd think.

Yes, well looking at the record,
John Fidge got four that night, Geoff Raines three, Mark Mickan and Stephen
Reynoldson a couple each. They were all legendary goalkickers and it was a
mighty team.Funny thing about that team, they seemed to go all right at
the MCG. I think it had something to do with being in their comfort zone because
Carrara was a little similar. For some reason, we seemed able to find space. Raines was a Rolls-Royce, Fidgey, albeit a little inconsistent, certainly could make a name for himself on any given night.

Dare I ask, do you actually
remember that night?We remember all of our Bears wins, Tim. There
weren't enough of them. We enjoyed every win that we had purely because it was
almost always a Dirty Dozen mentality. We received little or no assistance in those days from the VFL.

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Geoff Raines took the three
Brownlow votes that night and the two votes went to another teammate, Matthew
Simpson. Do you catch up with him these days? Do you remember him?Um,
er, Matthew Simpson . . . I remember, ah, Rainesy certainly I remember. Matthew
Simpson, yeah, I remember vaguely. That's what the game's all about, the lists
change, they can be so different, not so much one year to the next, but probably
every second year, you look at team photos (and) there's a dramatic turnover. I'm just glad we gave a lot of those boys an opportunity to play VFL football, as it was back then.

It sounds like the answer to
that question is something verging on a "no". Exactly.

On one hand, you were a motley
crew. On the other, you were all in it together. Were you more, or less, bonded
than other teams you played for?Any team that gets constantly battered
appears very fragile in the fabric department. It falls away very quickly. It
gets to a self-preservation situation, and whether that kicks in at the
10-minute mark of the first quarter or the 20-minute mark of the last depends on
how the team's going on the day. It wasn't until Paul Feltham got there
that things sort of galvanised better. That's no reflection on Knightsy, it was
just fact. Feltham came at it from a different angle and won five of seven (late in the 1989 season) and was unceremoniously sacked. Work that out.

He's such a mystery figure in
the history of the game. Do you think he was a good coach?I thought he
was an excellent coach. I certainly wasn't a part of his dismissal, I know that.
There was a group that saw him dismissed that comprised of a few hierarchy and a
few players. To my reckoning, his supposedly colourful, chequered past came back
to haunt him. I thought the way he went about it was outstanding and to win five
of the last seven, and really putting the onus on that group of players, and we
had Raines, Richardson, Williams, Hardie and Merrett, we had a fairly formidable unit if you put it together on the day.

It was a different form of
football life. Did you enjoy the experience?Too true. We had to
manufacture all of our intensity because we were running around in anonymity up
there. Certainly, it was a new frontier and I think that was the most
challenging thing and the most attractive thing for a lot of the players. To be
quite honest, looking back now, some of the results were a lot better than
people give us credit for. The first year, we won six; the second year, we won
seven; and the third year, we won eight. Here we are in 2004 and teams are struggling to attain those numbers.

And on tonight's match, are you
hoping the Lions end your little piece of history or will you be pulling for
your old coach Mick Malthouse and his Magpies?I'd be happy for the Lions
to take over the mantle. They're a wonderful side, one of the best I've ever
seen, and I think they deserve to keep carving niches in history for
themselves. What they've forgone to stay together as a winning group is just magnificent. Let's hope tonight is another winning game for them and that they can sail into history by going on and winning four in a row.

And does the memory linger of
the day Mick dragged you at Waverley?We don't have a lot to do with each
other. I've admired from afar what he did with the West Coast Eagles. You've
still got to get them over the line. And Collingwood have made two grand finals.
But I think there's a tenure and a pattern in Mick's coaching and after four or
five years, I think that's about it for him. The graph goes in a rise and then
it starts to fall and I think it's a matter of picking the time when it starts
to fall that maybe Mick needs to move on or they revamp that playing group so that he can start again.